Methods and apparatus are known for forming a roll of tape material, known in the art as a “sheeted roll”, comprising individual sheets of material wound concentrically about a core. Typically, the sheets are all of the same length, so the degree of overlap of sheets decreases as the roll diameter increases during winding of the roll, and typically, the ends of adjacent sheets are abutting. Such rolls, when wound with an adhesive surface facing outwards from the core, are useful, for example, in cleaning particles from a substrate surface by transferring the particles to the adhesive surface when the roll is rolled along the substrate surface. In such use, the roll is known in the art as a “particle transfer roller” (PTR) or a “contact cleaning roller” (CCR).
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. U.S. 2006/0057322 A1, published Mar. 16, 2006, the relevant disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, discloses a method and apparatus for forming a sheeted roll from a continuous length of such material. Continuous material having an adhesive coating is passed around a cutting roller having a traversing knife which is disposed therewithin and is selectively retractable below the surface of the cutting roller. At designated intervals, the knife is extended and traverses the continuous material, cutting therefrom a length of material defining a sheet which is then removably applied to a sheeting roller. Successive sheets, when so cut and applied to a sheeting roller, which preferably includes an inert core, define a sheeted roll in accordance with the prior art and the present invention.
A problem arises in applying the disclosed prior art to practice. The apparatus shown in FIG. 4 thereof for forming the sheeted roll shows the sheeted roll 110 being distinctly off-spaced from cutting roller 312 by an unidentified gap. The specification is silent as to how the leading edge of an adhesive sheet, which is now severed from its predecessor and therefore is discontinuous, is to be transferred from the cutting roller to the sheeting roller. The present invention is directed to method and apparatus for reliably effecting such transfer.
What is needed in the art is means for transferring sequential discontinuous sheets from a cutting roller to a sheeting roller to form a sheeted roll of material.
It is a principal object of the present invention to form a sheeted roll of material.